Meloni recalls police and workers from evacuated migrant centers in Albania and is praised by the right

Dozens of Italian police and social workers deployed to Albanian migrant centers by Italy’s far-right government have returned home after it emerged that the facilities, praised by the right as a model for reducing refugee arrivals, were being detained for weeks. Are empty since.

Just a month after the publicized opening of Albania’s multimillion-dollar detention centers for asylum seekers, which were to admit 3,000 people per month, more than 50 police officers were transferred back to Italy two weeks ago, while dozens The social workers left over the weekend, with their presence being deemed “unnecessary” in Albania.

Since their inauguration on 11 October, only 24 asylum seekers have been sent to the centers in Albania, with the aim of sending them back to their countries of origin. Five spent less than 12 hours in the detention centre, while the rest stayed for a little more than 48 hours.

They were all transferred to Italy because Italian judges deemed it illegal to detain them in Albania before deporting them back to countries such as Bangladesh and Egypt, which were considered “safe” by Rome.

In this way, the judges confirmed the October 4 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), according to which a country belonging to the bloc cannot be declared safe unless its entire territory is considered safe.

As a result, the centres, presented by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as a new model for setting up processing and detention centers for asylum seekers outside the EU, have been empty for more than a month.

At a time when the government is struggling to balance the budget, cutting funding to education, health and social security, opposition parties have described the plan as a “fiscal disaster”, which would cost around €1 million over five years. Will be billion.

“Mission accomplished,” said Riccardo Maggi, president of the center-left Piu Europa (More Europe) party. “The government has been successful in its efforts to repatriate. Immigrant? No, Italian workers have been sent to Albania, who will return home at the weekend. The government first wasted huge sums of public money, then brought some police personnel back to Italy when the center was vacant and now social workers are also returning home. “This is a historic failure.”

The plan has sparked controversy between the government and judges, with far-right parties accusing them of obstructing the project.

Nicola Gratteri, Naples’ chief prosecutor and one of Italy’s most authoritative magistrates, said in a television interview this week: “We must stop attacking magistrates because we don’t like a decision. I don’t want to make any political judgments, but I say that at the moment there are 250 law enforcement officers in Albania who hardly do anything. Keeping 250 police officers on a mission in Albania is a waste, so I think they should be returned to Italy, where we are facing staffing shortages for thousands of police officers.

The government has said that the centers in Albania “will remain open and operational” and that the transfers to Italy have been made based on staff needs.

However, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s credibility is at stake as he has made immigration a central issue of his election campaign. In the past, he has criticized his predecessors for spending public money managing the migration crisis. The cost of sea transportation on an Italian military ship of just eight people, which arrived in Albania over a weekend in mid-November, was 250,000 euros, more than 31,000 euros per asylum seeker on the ship.

Alliance of Greens and Left party deputy Elisabetta Picolotti declared: “The government has failed despite knowing that it will fail. They have spent a lot of money and played with people’s rights. “This will go down in history as a shameful page for our country.”